Asa Butterfield: Ender’s Game shows how bullying can suddenly make people snap

Your character in Ender’s Game has a hard time in space school. Have you experienced bullying because of your acting career?

No, but the whole theme of bullying and what it can do to people is especially relevant today. There are always stories in the news and Ender’s shows how bullying can suddenly make people snap. It’s not something I ever went through. All the friends I have now I have known since before I went into acting. To them, I’m still my usual self, which is how I want it to be. It would be weird if I was treated any differently just because of what I do.

Did your career mean you were home-schooled? No, I’ve always gone to a normal state school. I just want to be a normal teenager. I’m in the first year of my A levels. It’s hard to keep on top of it while I’m filming but we’ll see how it’s gone when I get my results.

Do you want to go to university? I’m not going to go to university straight away. I’ll take some time off and spend a year dedicating myself to acting work without also having to fit in school or exams or any of that. It would be nice to spend some relaxed time and I’d like to go to university but maybe in a few years’ time.

Did you enjoy doing the special effects aspects of the film? I’d never worked on a film with so much CGI. Working with green screen, having very little to react to, was a new style of acting for me but fortunately I’ve always had a very vivid imagination and could picture all the stuff that was supposed to be going on around me. Seeing the final film when it was all put in was amazing.

Did you acquire any other new skills? All the zero-gravity scenes were very physical – we had to learn how to float in a harness and try to replicate the look of zero gravity. We went to boot camp and learned how to march and salute.

When did you start acting? When I was eight at a drama club after school. It was just for fun but a casting director came in and asked me to audition for The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, which was my first major film and did very well.

What did you enjoy about it? It was never something that interested me, I just went to the drama club for fun. Then it was a case of being in the right place at the right time. The moment I thought: ‘Wow, this is something I could do for the rest of my life’ was when I was filming Hugo and saw all these amazing people who were so successful. That was very inspirational. I’ve had the privilege of working with Sir Ben Kingsley twice now. He’s a phenomenal actor – and he’s such a nice guy and so humble.

Does he really insist on being called Sir Ben? He doesn’t insist on it, it’s just no one ever dared not to call him Sir Ben. If you were a sir, wouldn’t you want to be called Sir? It’s pretty cool. It becomes his name – Sirben. It blends into one word.

Are you aiming for a knighthood? No, I’m not particularly patriotic or into that sort of thing. If I get knighted, then sweet, but it’s not what I’m aspiring towards.

Is it difficult making the transition from a child actor to an adult film star? I’ve always done quite heavy films – The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas was pretty full-on in terms of content and Hugo was a nine-month shoot with Martin Scorsese, so that wasn’t an easy ride. I made that switch a lot earlier than some people. When you’ve done quite mature films, it’s a lot easier to transition into the adult world of acting, where you can dedicate your whole life to it.

You don’t have to shake off the stigma of being a Disney kid. No, I’ve never done those typical kids’ films. I was never one to watch those films. As I’m not interested in High School Musical or Twilight or those sort of films, it’s never been something I’ve wanted to go into.

Your new film Ten Thousand Saints sounds quite heavy-going – it’s all drug addiction and teenage pregnancies, isn’t it? It’s definitely one of the darker films I’ve done. It’s always interesting to be able to vary in genre – you don’t want to be stuck in one type of character or genre because it limits what you could potentially do. This film has really let me experiment. The story is quite dark and it’s set in 1980s New York and it’s quite realistic.

What are your ambitions for the future? I’m not sure. The thing I love about acting is you never know where your career will lead. If I could play any character it would be James Bond – but I’ve got a few years to go before that could happen.